Not too long ago, Purling Pirate counted and figured out how many pairs of socks she could make from her sock stash. Heck, she's even got a counter on her site to keep her honest. (And, oh-my! how it's grown lately!)

At one point, I thought that I had scooped her lead (especially after my haul from MSWF). But no. Not even close, really.

First, let me explain to any non-knitter (or non-crafter) that may be reading this and is concerned that their head may explode from the information revealed below. A knitter's stash is sacred and very personal. Size and content don't matter as much as emotions (what makes us happy, content, and excited) and possessiveness.

Some knitters keep a fairly small and tidy stash, which is constantly changing as projects are actually knitted from this yarn. (Crazy, huh?) While other knitters will horde every ounce of some fiber that takes their fancy, with no real intentions of knitting it up. (This is especially the case of a yarn that may become discontinued.)

And then there's the sock yarn stash. These yarns are separate and independent from the rest of one's stash. And the sock yarn stash is illusive when it comes to accounting for the stash.

If you ever charm your way into a knitter's home and are granted the privilege of viewing (and ooh'ing and ahh'ing) their stash and you know that they knit socks, ask about their sock yarn stash. I guarantee you that they will be impressed and that it will be separate. But I can't guarantee that you'll see it. That may just be too much good will to ask for.

Okay, now that I've gotten that over with... I laid out and counted my sock yarn stash today. Not because I was bored. Heck no, I could be knitting! But because the stashes were getting a little out of control. I had been in the stash to get bits n' piece here n' there, and nothing was put away. So it was time to tidy (and ooh and ahh).

So my official count as of today is...

I could knit 68+ pairs of socks just from my stash!

The "+" is because I've been keeping my leftovers/scraps. The knitgrrls and I are going to gather all our scraps together and knit the most horrendous, crazy pairs of socks ever to be knit! Ain't life grand?

Like a good blogger, I snapped a couple of pics of this whole shebang. And of course the majority and best pictures are of Walter "helping" me organize and count. (HA!)

As an aside, I also found two skeins of Trekking XXL (#93 and #126). Which is good and timely since I snuck under the wire and joined the Trek Along With Me knit a-long.

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